A nearly 40 degree drop from where we were just a few days ago. I could feel the cold through the car window as we drove closer to the bay. When we got up in the morning at our friends’ Killian and Catherine’s apartment in Berkeley, it felt like a crisp NY day in October. Our friends, who we’ve known since our Portland (and later Brooklyn) days, had a hearty spread of a breakfast ready for us. We then headed out to the Ferry Terminal Market and made our way through Chinatown. And what’s with the lines out the door to get ice cream in this city? We waited for 30 minutes at Ici on College Avenue in Berkeley the first night and on another line at Humphry Slocombe in the Mission the next. AND we were standing among people dressed in NorthFace down jackets and flip flops.

Ok, so…I like traveling with the kids, I really do. But it’s nearly impossible to take a leisurely browse through the market. There were a dozen stands and shops that I would have loved to shop in…but it didn’t happen. I suppose it’s better for my wallet.

I think one of the most challenging things we’re facing as a not-so-new business is keeping things new and relevant. There’s one thing to be said about reaping the benefits from notching a few years of experience under your belt: systems start falling into place and production for the most part, runs fairly smoothly (geez, I talk as if we’re a big operation. It’s still just Mark in the kitchen though). The press and the public, however, are always on the lookout for the next new thing. Summers can also be a slower season for bakers when the weather warms up and people are turning to frozen treats and ice cream (I don’t blame them) so we decided to do a little experiment.

Maybe you’ll remember that the only thing that I feel wistful about regarding our decision not to open a store is the fact that Mark can’t make his ice cream. It’s his favorite kind of dessert to make and he was just about ready to ditch the baked goods if the ice cream took off. We can’t really handle ice cream production right now, so Mark made a version that doesn’t need machinery and isn’t whipped (it comes out much denser). He tested out 3 flavors and we both immediately liked the curry milk chocolate, so he brought them in little 4oz cups to the Flea last Saturday…except they didn’t really sell all that well. Granted, it was last minute, we didn’t publicize it except for a single tweet and a Facebook post (also, I am horrible at promoting our own stuff), and maybe the world wasn’t ready to try a curry milk chocolate combo, who knows. We also made the mistake, I think, of calling it frozen custard which it technically is, but it didn’t really help. Mark was kind of a sad panda that day. But hey, we’re strong! We’re resilient! And we can accept when an idea doesn’t work. It isn’t the first time we came up with something that failed.

BUT, we’re not giving up so fast this time because we really like them and our kids like them and if Claudine, who is the pickiest eater ever, thinks this is “MMMMM” and can’t stop talking about how the spices made a funny tingle in her throat, then maybe other people will like it too. So Mark’s bringing them back to the Flea this Saturday (this week we’re at Smorgasburg in Williamsburg) and here’s the one time you’ll read an obnoxiously shameless plug right here on the blog:

(Start Shameless Plug)
This Saturday at the Smorg! Curry Milk Chocolate Ice Cream in a Cup! Packed densely in small 4oz cups so you don’t need to worry about breaking that diet! Made with high quality chocolate and Mark’s own blend of curry spices! A mere $3.50 buys you a flavor explosion in your mouth! Limited supply, so get yours early!
(End Shameless Plug)

whew, ok, that wasn’t so bad. By the way, I heard that The Flea is celebrating National Ice Cream Month by bringing in extra ice cream vendors this Saturday who don’t normally sell at the Flea so there’s like a million more ice cream options than usual. Face plant.

apricot, pineapple buttermilk, grapefruit ginger, lemon olive oil, blueberry yogurt, sorrel, mango basil.

These are all sorbets that Mark made recently. We tried 4 of them (really, really curious about the sorrel!) and yup, they were all good, especially the lemon olive oil and pineapple buttermilk. The acidic sharpness of the pineapple and tart lemon made a really interesting counterpoint and was tempered by the smoothness of the olive oil and buttermilk.

When we talk about a store, what we get excited about is the ice cream and sorbets. There’s a reason why it was our first business idea, but we always got stumped on the fact that it was such a seasonal product. What do you do in the winter? But we wouldn’t have that problem anymore with the cookies. While the business may be running like a machine now (a human Mark machine), he still gets plenty of joy from making ice creams and sorbets.

You’re intrigued, aren’t you?
Mark’s been far too busy to make any desserts at home, but once in awhile, if we’re lucky, a container of ice cream will magically appear in the freezer or a new cookie might appear under the cake dome. We’re not the type of household that always keeps a pint of ice cream in the freezer (hey, why is that?), but Mark’s ice creams, as I’ve mentioned before, might very well be one of my favorite treats and this flavor, malted milk, might be one of my favorite new flavors.

Have I ever told you that when we used to day dream about opening our own business one day, we always thought it would be an ice cream business?

You can find the recipe to this over here. Have a great Labor Day weekend, everybody! Mark will be at the Brooklyn Flea tomorrow and then we’re going to try and recover from our painting week and have some family fun days Sunday and Monday before the first official day of Kindergarten for Mia!

I can’t remember ever making a New Year’s resolution, except one year when I vowed to eat more caviar. Or was it truffles? Whatever it was, I didn’t do very well. I’m going to try another resolution right now – a summer resolution, if you will, to make one batch of homemade ice cream or sorbet a week until September. I may miss a week here or there, but I promise to do my best. I made this lychee sorbet last week for the awesome BBQ we went to on Sunday. It’s almost the same recipe I used for many years at the Central Park Boathouse. Lychees are one of the tastiest and most refreshing fruits, and the good thing about this recipe is that there is very little besides the lychee juice to dilute the flavor. I use lychee puree that I order wholesale, but if you can find a lychee juice with about 10% sugar it should work fine.

Lychee Sorbet (makes almost one quart)

1/2 cup sugar
6 Tablespoons water
3 cups lychee puree, or lychee juice (about 10% sugar)

Heat the sugar and water together in a saucepan just enough to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and stir in the lychee juice. Process in your ice cream maker until frozen, transfer to a container and freeze in the freezer for several hours before serving.

I’m not usually a hot weather fan, but I am loving this summer weather we’re having. The girls can finally wear the summer dresses they’ve been pining to wear everyday (yeah ok, me too), and we’ve been passing the time sitting on stoops, on grass, on benches, pretty much anywhere we can stay outdoors. The long weekend was filled with visits from family and friends, guacamole and mojitos, brunch in Dumbo, after dinner ice cream from the artisan ice cream truck in our neighborhood, outdoor meals out on the patio in the burbs, and a little shopping. Hope you had a nice weekend too.

What is a sign of a great cookbook? To me, a great cookbook has a worn-out binding, a frayed cover and food-stained pages. That indicates that the cookbook is in use, rather than one that is just admired. On my shelf no book is more worn-out than this one: Frozen Desserts. I have owned it for over ten years and have used it extensively at every job I have had. The recipes are reliable and tasty and even work well in a commercial ice cream maker. I bought some plums to make ice cream the other day and turned to this book for guidance. I’ve used their recipe for plum ice cream on my dessert menus before. It calls for rosé wine, but I usually substitute with plum wine. This time I replaced it with créme de cassis. It ended up giving it a richer flavor as well as a much deeper color. Make sure to use dark-skinned plums for the best color.

Plum Cassis Ice Cream (makes 1 quart)

1 pound black plums
1/2 cup créme de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur)
1 cup heavy cream
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar

Wash the plums, remove the pits, then slice each into eight pieces. Place in a small pot with the créme de cassis. Bring to a boil, then simmer until the plums are soft – about 8-10 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Bring the cream just to a boil. Whisk the yolks and sugar together in a bowl, then slowly pour in the hot cream while continuing to whisk. Add the cooked plums. Purée both together until completely smooth. Chill completely before processing through your ice cream maker.

Pastry chefs always seem to get stuck with more extra work than others in a typical restaurant kitchen. Someone in the dining room was served the wrong entree? Give them free desserts. Need something extra for a VIP banquet for 300 people tonight? Have the pastry department whip up several hundred petit fours. It takes superb organizational skills and excellent improvisational skills to be a pastry chef which is probably the main reason they are able to handle such things. Here is maybe the most common example: the chef approaches the pastry chef and says, “I have 3 cases of something that’s going bad – use them up.” That’s an easy one, just make some ice cream.

I always like to think that anything can be made into an ice cream, so whatever extra ingredients you have on hand can be used to whip something up. Since I’ve been making many marshmallows lately, especially for the FiFis last Tuesday, I’ve had lots of extra egg yolks lying around, plus some lemongrass, heavy cream, and even some toasted coconut from something I can’t remember. That sounded like a winning combination, one that I may have even tried before, so I made it using my basic recipe. It had a very smooth, warm tropical flavor and the lemongrass gives it that extra something that you can’t quite put your finger on. If you have an ice cream maker and want to try it, just use your favorite vanilla recipe and substitute plenty of fresh lemongrass and toasted unsweetened coconut for the vanilla. Strain it out and proceed as usual. I have a feeling I’ll be making lots of ice cream this summer.